Helene

According to the Goh Ballet site, they are performing "The Nutcracker" at Whistler during the weekend of the broadcast, and I'm afraid Burnaby hasn't made itself into Vancouver any more than New Jersey has made itself into New York City. http://www.gohballet.com/

The casting isn't up for the December 22 matinee at San Francisco Ballet yet. The decor for that production sounds gorgeous, but I haven't heard any raves for the choreography. It is being produced by KQED with Great PEformances, and "Opus Arte" is listed in the end-credits of the preview, which, hopefully, means there's a chance it will be distributed on DVD. According to the NBoC website, the cast is: Sugarplum Fairy: Heather Ogden Peter/The Nutcracker: Guillaume Côté Snow Queen and her Icicles: Xiao Nan Yu, Etienne Lavigne, Nehemiah Kish Baba: Victoria Bertram Uncle Nikolai: Piotr Stanczyk

When I was a student travelling through Europe, I took an overnight train from Bonn to Munich, arriving in the morning, with plans to take that evening's overnight train to Vienna. After spending a day at museums, I saw a poster for the Munich Opera, which was performing Die Schweigsame Frau, and it noted that there were student rush tickets. I was dressed in travelling clothes, and although my jeans weren't ripped, they were still jeans. I expected the student rush tickets to be at the back of the back of the theater, when I found, to my chagrin, that my seat was in the middle of the main floor -- the 100+ Deustche Mark ticket section, and that was the price 30 years ago -- in the middle of the aisle of continental seating. If looks could kill... There is no way I would have gone had I known I would be put in the prime section, instead of a partial view highest balcony seat, where no one else would see me.

I second Natalia's post: a region-free DVD player has allowed me to purchase wonderful DVD's when travelling and online from many countries. I had been looking for a DVD of the 1990 movie Perfectly Normal forever, and I finally found it on amazon.com, but the only one ordered was a Dutch version, complete with Dutch "supertitles." Wrong region and PAL. For my region-free DVD player, not a problem.

I would say the same about the New Year's Eve performance

There are three clean breaks for Sugar Plum Fairy: opening and solo, adagio from the Grand Pas de Deux, and variation/ending of Grand Pas de Deux. Two cavaliers are needed for the standard choreography. Dewdrop has so many entrances and exits, that a handful of dancers could do the role. What will be interesting to see is how many of the codas are tweaked. For example, for the 1993 Balanchine Celebration, there were six women and four men who performed "Who Cares?": one dancer for each solo, and another pair for the Pas de Deux. They all appeared in the finale. Will the center of Dance of the Flowers be a handful of Dewdrops? Will the finale of the Grand Pas de Deux include all of the Sugar Plum Fairies? Will the grand finale include all of them? (Either they'll need a load of Candy Canes to support the Dewdrops, or the Dewdrops' choreography will be tweaked.)

I was just looking in my performance diary and found: In 1984-6, Timothy Lynch danced Prince. I think this is the Timothy Lynch who danced with PNB and is now on the school faculty. In 1987-8, I only note that an "Otto" played Prince. This would have been the youngest one, Eric, who was with ABT, and according to his Metropolitan Opera Ballet bio (he joined in 2007), he was also in "Movin' Out." (When he was still a tennager, he came to Seattle to visit his brother, Phil, who was teaching our adult class. He sure has grown up.) There was a big trend in the '80's for the kids to put in all three names. Jennie Somogyi was listed as "Jennie Renee Somogyi."

The opening line of the review is I just found it interesting that the reviewer is saying that a theater adaptation is more true to Tchaikovsky than Balanchine was. Hoffmann, I can understand, but Tchaikovsky?

Many of the Professional Division kids danced Candy Cane and Polichinelles. Merrill Ashley wrote about having been chosen after she started as SAB, where she entered as a young teenager into the Pre Professional division. Most of the Maries and Princes, though, never make it to the stage as professional dancers; it takes acting and mime skills to play those roles. Even at PNB, the young Claras are the dancers with acting and mime ability, and their friends are almost always better dancers.

Peter Boal, Judith Fugate, and Jenny Somogyi danced the Prince and Marie with New York City Ballet, and they are among the few to have trained since children at SAB and risen to Principal Dancer rank with the Company. I would think there would be more children with Paris Opera Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Ballet, and Bolshoi Ballet who did the same, since all of the children taken into the school at age 8 (or so) are expected to have a chance to dance with the Company, unlike at SAB, SFB, PNB, etc., where most of the kids in the pre-professional track are not children who've trained at the school since they were children, but come as adolescents. Phil Otto, who was a long-time soloist at Pacific Northwest Ballet, danced the Prince with NYCB. I'm pretty sure there was a dancer with Mark Morris Dance Group who danced Fritz when at SAB, and I think his first name is "Max."

Yes, Klavier! Please tell us about it after you see it live. I'm listening to an interview with Susan Graham (by Margaret Juntwait) during the third intermission of Gounod's Romeo and Juliet on Sirius radio, and she is so intelligent and articulate. She's speaking about the production.

I think this is a great point. I remember rushing to "The Nutcracker" from work a few years ago, in my typical commuter frenzy and casual clothing, and after nearly knocking over some poor child in my tunnel vision (and complete klutziness) to find my aisle, realized that it was a very big deal for the kids, and I had made no effort. That was the last time, and I make myself remember to respect the tradition and importance of the experience to the kids, and dress for the occasion and leave work at the door.

A reviewer in Philadelphia attended Curio Theatre's "The Nutcracker" and has a take on the story and Tchaikovsky. http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/12/13/the-good-nut

For "Nutcrackers" also be prepared to see little boys in ties and jackets and little girls dressed in their holiday finest, sometimes including tiaras. Wearing a sari sounds wonderful!

LOS ANGELES BALLET ADDS ADDITIONAL PERFORMANCE OF "THE NUTCRACKER" ON DECEMBER 23, 2007 AT UCLA's ROYCE HALL WHAT: With two sold-out performances and an overwhelming demand for tickets, Los Angeles Ballet has added an additional performance of "The Nutcracker" at UCLA’s Royce Hall. WHO: Los Angeles Ballet Artistic Directors Colleen Neary and Thordal Christensen and Los Angeles Ballet principal dancers including Melissa Barak, Corina Gill and Sergey Kheylik. WHERE: Royce Hall, UCLA 340 Royce Drive Los Angeles, CA 90095 WHEN: December 23, 2007 at 6:30 p.m. About The Nutcracker Returning for its second season, Los Angeles Ballet's The Nutcracker follows the story of Clara and her family welcoming guests to a party on Christmas Eve and the magical adventures that ensue. Audiences will feel at home yet will soon learn to anticipate fresh variations on the traditional themes. The storyline, while sticking close to traditional lore, also offers unique twists, such as Clara's favorite dolls coming to life as "Marie" and her "Prince". The sets, created by Los Angeles designer Catherine Kanner, create the feeling of being inside a children’s storybook; a real place yet fantastical -- warm and inviting. Scenes reflect 1912 Los Angeles, featuring a classic Spanish style home with Mexican, Spanish and European influences. Costumes were created by famed Danish designer Mikael Melbye, presenting the audience with opulent visuals. In addition, for the first time, families across Los Angeles will be able to enjoy LAB’s magical Nutcracker production at a special price with its Family Ticket Package. Families can purchase one single adult ticket at full cost and receive a 50% discount on tickets for up to four children 12 and under, or purchase two single adult tickets and receive 50% off for up to eight children’s tickets.

New estimated ship date: 24 December

Many thanks for your review JMcN I've always wanted to see this production, and your description makes me want to see it ieven more. I'm hoping to be able to travel to England during "Nutcracker" season sometime soon.

Didn't this occur in the version that Baryshnikov put together for ABT in the late 70s 0r early 80s? Drosselmeyer lost that particular competition and Marie (Clara?) danced and danced as a newly recruited citizen of the Land of Sweets. I don't recall the ABT Drosselmeyers, but I do remember feeling odd about the way the character was defined. Yes, the one that was taped and shown on TV, with Kirkland.

My favorite Drosselmeyer is Francisco Moncion in Balanchine's version. I saw him perform the role in the '80's, I think just before he no longer appeared on the list of dancers. He was gentle and kind to Marie, and although she would have to face an ordeal, he created a magical world for her when it was over. Although I dislike "Nutcracker" interpretations where there is a Freudian battle between the adult Drosselmeyer and the Prince, I very much like Kent Stowell's take on the role. Appropriate to the Sendak sets is the story of a girl on the verge of becoming a teenager, and that period is fraught with anxiety and new understanding (and mis-understanding) of the assumptions of childhood. Drosselmeyer isn't just a meanie who picks on children, like the uncle who makes cruel fun and expects the child to laugh at his own expense, or the aunt who gets joy out of pinching cheeks that much too hard: he's a strange, older man who treats Marie like a child, but also gives her the shivers as a tween. During the second act, when he plays the Pasha, she avoids him as much as she can, enjoying the spectacle, but having the underlying anxiety that there's something dangerous, or not quite right. It really captures the quality of anxiety dreams that turn nightmarish; the adult ballerina, a representation of Marie, might be mature physically, but psychologically, she is mainly the younger Marie. It plays the very fine line of "ick," but always at that adolescent state.

I think people will be interested, because it was with Vivian Leigh, and it's not the standard version of "wild, passionate affair." From every review of the book I've read, it's been called out. (It is a prominent chapter.)

December 2-December 9 Rita Feliciano reviews Margaret Jenkins Dance Company in "Other Suns" at Theater Artaud in San Francisco.

It didn't come up in our Links search as of now, and a search of the Oregonian site on "Oregon Ballet Theatre" and "Nutcracker" is coming up null for this review. Perhaps it will be posted later this week. If it's posted, it will be added to Links. This forum is for members to discuss performances they've seen. Has anyone on Ballet Talk seen this production this year? If so, we'd love to hear about it. Edited to Add -- Carbro found it, and it's now posted to Links for today.

Jane Simpson interviewed Thomas Lund in light of the publication of his book, "Dansglæde og springkraft" for the ballet.co Magazine December 2007 issue. http://www.ballet.co.uk/magazines/yr_07/de...thomas_lund.htm

When I first saw the movie Ballets Russes, I found Irina Baronova delightful and so very generous in her description of her fellow baby ballerinas. But I fell in love with the woman sitting next to her, her great friend Tamara Tchinarova, who said that Baranova was her "perfect ballerina," and when Baronova protested, she said in her very no-nonsense way, that it wasn't just because Baranova was sitting next to her. and from her manner, I believed her completely. I always wondered why, although I had seen her name in passing, I had never heard of her, especially since she looked like a terrific dancer in the very short clips of her. I read Dancing into the Unknown this summer. It's a memoir more than an autobigraphy, with great emphasis on specific periods of her life. Because of her intelligence, she describes in great detail the contrast between her childhood spent in rural Romania and her family's subsequent life in Paris, and the tragedy of her father, and those like him: an idealist about the Soviet Union who thought he could be a servant of his country in the West, but was treated as a spy and traitor upon his return. What I found most remarkable about the book is how Tchinarova manages at each point in her life to describe her own reality at the time, however naive: for example, when she is a young member of the Ballet Russe with her mother, it is a description of the experience of a young girl; when she is the young wife of Peter Finch and she brings her daughter to Hollywood, she describes how inconceivable the luxurious Hollywood existence was for someone who had struggled financially; when she and her mother are the financial victims of one of Ballet Russe's collapses before and during wartime, the restriction, worry, and treatment as unfriendly (or at least untrustworthy) aliens in Australia she describes are palpable. Perhaps what will sell the most copies is her long description of her husband at the time, Peter Finch's, affair with Vivian Leigh. Peter Finch was "discovered" by the Oliviers and was a theater actor in London before he went to Hollywood, summoned by Leigh. She aptly describes what it was like for a non-diva ballet person, used to strict discipline and financial hardship, to be caught way in over her head in a psycho-drama during a time when mental illness -- Leigh was bipolar -- was more misunderstood and not tolerated than even now and was hidden. (Leigh's friends from Great Britain, who were the set with whom the Finches socialized during their Hollywood stay, had long known of her behavior and breakdowns, yet in the midst of them, acted as if nothing abnormal was happening.) For all of her intelligence, what I find astounding is that she never recognizes Finch's behavior as a form of the same illness, although it wasn't as severe and he was able to self-medicate with alcohol. I believe she never recognizes this, having associated his drinking and absences with the hard-drinking male-pack behavior he displayed when she met him in Australia and which plagued their early marriage, and his ups and downs and periodic disappearances with an unfulfilled artistic temperament. When her marriage to Finch fell apart, and she was responsible for her mother and daughter, she became a technical translator, which eventually brought her back to ballet, as a translator for visiting ballet companies. Her mother was quite a handful in her later years, and if there's anything about which Tchinarova seems bitter in the slim volume, it is the pro-tenant laws that allowed drug dealers and prostitutes to remain in her mother's rental property, even when they were able to witness and prove criminal activity in the apartments. It is quite a description of the end of a parent's life, and the pressures on an adult child to care for that parent, especially a willful one. She also gives an overview of Baranova's life that Baranova left out of her autobiography. While the story is personal, I found that Tchinarova told, if not a universal story, the parts that help the reader understand its time and place.

I don't mean to be mean about such a monumental effort, and, frankly, when someone points out something like this in one of my 200-page functional specs I want to slap them silly, but this cracked me up.